TWDT Season 26 Rules - Feedback Needed

[SpookedOne]

What about making each team field a b-team with lower star count? B-games wouldn't effect playoffs but could be a chance to elevate some mid-star players

[Rab]

[QUOTE=Zeebu;n1360320]
i guess it would be good to state what the goal of the league is.
[/QUOTE]

"TWDT is... a league which...
... provides decent games in uk/eu timezone
... doesn't have twl's stacking issues"

really simple because there's literally nothing else going on in the uk/eu timezone.

[Riverside]

[QUOTE=Rab;n1360322]

"TWDT is... a league which...
... provides decent games in uk/eu timezone
... doesn't have twl's stacking issues"

really simple because there's literally nothing else going on in the uk/eu timezone.[/QUOTE]

I appreciate this. There simply isn't much happening for players outside the EST/PCF timezone. Players outside the EST/PCF timezone made and make up a significant % of TWs population over the past 2-3 decades.

Leagues, dev work, marketing efforts, etc (so far voluntarily) have had (and may in the future have) projects that target the demographic of existing and former players.

I respectfully disagree with planning & executing a league that centers itself as a league that counters concerns about another league in the Zone.

Thats one big ass systemic bandage.

Leagues often can and do intersect, ie in terms of time period and/or players.

An overarching objective, imo, is to provide the population of existing and former players with fun and honest experiences that brings a desire to return. Volunteer contributors have aimed (and will likely continue to aim) to plan and execute Leagues that many players enjoy, in the short & long term.
Its helpful, imo to continue asking participating players in different ways:[LIST][*]What types of activities and/or development would you like to see that would be appealing enough to log in to and enjoy, today and in 1, 3 and/or 5 years?[*]What type of direction would you like Zone volunteer contributions to go to (A B C D and/or other)?[/LIST]Another way is addressing the overall gaps that exist for the Zones population of currently and formerly playing 2d spaceship playirs imo. Some of the gaps that exist (ie TWLs current & historic structure surrounding competitive gameplay balance) could be addressed by executing a different league (TWDT, Beer League, etc). To clarify: I see that more as a consequence as opposed to a goal/objective.

[ogron]

[QUOTE=Zeebu;n1360320]ogron bashed the 'minmaxing' and spreadsheets that helps in a star capped league. the trading too. im not sure i see an issue here though.[B] honestly im not really sure what youre trying to say.[/B] in one comment you say the star cap was implemented to open up the capping pool and allow for lesser rated captains to not be disadvantaged and in the next one you bash violence (a lower rated cap) for trying his best to use the system in place that allows him to captain without disadvantage. violence can be annoying and unintelligible at times, but hes still a very competent captain in this league.

if we move to the slot style, lower stared caps are once again at a disadvantage. is there anything that could be done with the draft or slots themselves that handicaps that difference?

[/QUOTE]

your reading comprehension seems really low, considering i laid out exactly what i'm trying to say in a clear and concise manner.

i didn't bash anyone, you keep using that word to try to make me look bad. i said violence is a dork, and that i am also a dork and did the exact same thing, and the star cap system allows you to out-captain others to a much larger degree than the star slot, especially with unlimited trades because there is a cumulative effect of having multiple understarred players under the star cap. not only is he outdrafting other captains, he's then targeting weaker captains in trade after trade.

he's proving that someone dedicated and smart enough can turn TWDT, a league [COLOR=#27ae60][B]FOR PLAYERS[/B][/COLOR], into a fantasy camp league [COLOR=#e74c3c][B]FOR HIMSELF[/B][/COLOR].

this is one of the reasons i choose not to cap anymore, because it feels like it's too much about outcaptaining rather than outplaying others.

good captains have always outperformed, but as i said, the effect wasn't as pronounced in the past. i think removing the cap on 3-4 trades was a big mistake, and the star cap makes it too much about the captains rather than the players.

you again seem very confused at the suggestion of returning to star slots, when i wrote a whole post beneath my original one saying [U]in order to keep great captains like violence under that system, here are the solutions[/U]. i'm not going to repeat the entire post here.

[Riverside]

[QUOTE=ogron;n1360324]

..proving that someone dedicated and smart enough can turn TWDT, a league FOR PLAYERS, into a fantasy camp league..


[/QUOTE]

What do you think about a 2 trade limit per TWDT team (Captain)?

Would that address the obstacles you've highlighted?


My input, with the context that I made about 16 trades this TWDT Season:

As a participant, I dont see enough reasons to care if a Captain plays (at all), is part of, or a center of their teams play in 1, 2 or 3 leagues. I dont see the positives outweighing the negatives, in terms of overall e-communal contribution.

The part that matters to me is the consequences of trading players, especially when its done recurringly, and throughout the entire Season.

Having a weekly trade deadline on Friday at midnight was an effective barrier for me to facilitating trades, as a Captain. I would have considered (& did try to) make more trades if I could have, on the Sunday when Captains are online (ie before a game). Other than Draft days (ie FA), I liked the weekly Friday midnight rule, in hindsight. It contributes helpfully in a couple ways (ie a player seeing they've been traded 2 days before a game is a diff experience than the day of, and as I mentioned: a barrier for some captains to make trades).

Limiting the number of trades a team can make could put a bandage to 3/6 Captains making a shit ton of trades this season, and it happening in past Seasons. It could be interesting to see if it works out as a long term solution as well, or if it requires a tweak or addition.

[LeeRomeno]

[QUOTE=Rab;n1360319]For me the league is successful if teams play at their maximum performance. That means a fair draft, with captains free to field the players they drafted, and players having good attendance.

To flip that around - if a roster is weak, that's bad. If good players have to bench, that's bad. If people don't live up to their expected attendance, that's bad.

I agree that signing up and not expecting to play is pointless, yet people do it every season, makes no sense to me. All it does is waste time on draft day. This is why I suggest not forcing captains to pick them, just end the draft early instead.

For arguments sake, if I'm the player who isn't getting to play because there's someone better in my slot, I'll just accept the situation and do something else with my time. I'm not going to show up hoping some scraps get thrown my way. And if I'm the player who usually plays, I'm showing up expecting to play, then I end up benched, so I wasted my time, if this continues I will learn that showing up is a waste of time. It's not dramatic, it's just a person doing what's in their interest, and whether it's Player A or Player B, the correct play is to not show up.[/QUOTE]

Maybe not in TW, but in EG, draft league concept was created to give everyone a chance to play in competitive environment. Surely there are always players, who are just not playable, as they ruin the game once they enter and they still insist on signing up, but there is far larger majority, who perhaps deserve a chance. This league we had what over 140 ppl signed up? I looked at stats and there are around 40 ppl who got at least 3 games in wb or jav, so over 100 players got few to 0 gametime. Surely, this can be solved with smaller teams, but in the end, crucial players in any case get to play in all games, it just makes captains to play around a bit and use more of their team.

Btw this brings me to another topic, maybe it makes sense to have 2 separate leagues, one for duelling, with considerably smaller teams and more caps and base, which follows different logic.

[Mythril]

I think the same criticisms I had that led to the star cap are still relevant against tiers mentioned in this thread. But here’s a long winded critique of tiers for TWDT Ops to consider:

I think a tiered system would have some serious unintended consequences. It’d create a pretty big hit in the parity we’ve seen over the last few years. 2* difference between lineups may seem trivial, but it’s actually pretty significant in reality and would be a mathematical certainty in a tiered system. One of the reasons I created the star cap was to fix one of the problems with the previous system, which was 9/10* players were lumped together in the same slot. This would reintroduce that problem at an even larger scale as it would be implemented across every new tier. You’re creating the potential to have the majority of games have a 1-4* disparity between lineups. Look at Riverside’s teams week one where they were fielding that kind of difference and you’ll see that those understarred teams have a pretty difficult mountain to climb. That’s proof that the star cap is doing something and has some predictive power when determining who wins if one team adds a number lower than the cap.

Beam introduced the .5 system to try and get more accurate ratings. Overall, that’s been an improvement to the league. Moving to tiers would do the opposite and then some - you’d essentially be mandating imbalance among each tier, creating an advantage for players at the higher end and a disadvantage for those at the lower end as they’d be competing in the same tier. This problem then gets compounded with every player added as there's no mechanism to balance the inevitable difference across lineups.

The idea that we get more “accurate ratings” since we’re grouping them in a wider net of tiers might sound true, but that’s only because you’re widening the target. But the problem is you’re aiming at the wrong target - the actual purpose of ratings is to balance players against each other in ways that make sense and allows each team to reasonably compete against each other. A 9* competing against a 10* opposite of him is not balance.

That’s the problem with tiers. Just because you don’t specify ratings or a star cap number doesn’t mean they don’t still exist. They both certainly do, but you pay the price by not defining them. The difference in skill between a 9* and 10* is still there regardless of if you define that or not. And the star cap number, or the maximum number that a team can add, is absolutely still there. But instead of that number being defined as something that every team can reasonably reach, that number is just created by whoever drafted the best overall lineup in that league. You’ll maybe have 2-3 teams that reach 44*, most hit 41-42*, and some might lag behind that. The problem would become even more pronounced in base. That’s not parity. We’d be going back to when leagues were determined by the end of round 2 in the draft.

Aside from lineups being equal, you’d also miss out on the most important thing the star cap does, which Ogron mentioned - it allows every captain the opportunity to draft a competitive lineup in every league, regardless of things like a captain’s ratings or draft position. This was solved with the flexibility of lineups that the star cap gives you, as caps don’t have to rely on a one-size-fits-all model of lineup. You can build a top-heavy line in one league early in the draft and then create a more balanced lineup in a different league with more mid-tier players that fall to the later rounds. This is a necessity because in a snake draft with humans at the helm and a multiple division league where the talent pool is incredibly varied, the chance that players get evenly distributed amongst all teams and all leagues is about as close to 0 as you can get. The more teams you add to the league, the greater the chance of disparity. And we want to be adding as many teams as realistically possible so as many people as possible can participate. I can't think of anything besides the star cap system that allows you to do that without doing a heavy restructuring of the draft itself.

[Turban]

I feel both systems have their pros and cons, and ultimately meeting in the middle could be the solution.

The truth is that player ratings have been [B]extremely biased [/B]every season which in return has slowly lead into inflated player ratings. This is a massive issue that absolutely needs to be addressed before next season starts. One way to accomplish this would be to implement a soft cap on how many players can be in each player rating tier. This was the main idea behind my player tier system where you would hard limit the amount of players in each tier, but naturally you could also accomplish simple player ratings. As an example [URL="https://puu.sh/JazSm/049ea2860a.png"]here[/URL] would have been my ratings for this seasons TWDT-B to make the spread far more balanced while addressing the inflation at the same time. In that table players with red background were downgraded by half a rating.

Nevertheless my biggest issue with star cap is the fact that you can completely break the system by fielding a low-star player who is playing well above their expected level and thus it would be better for us to narrow down the player rating range by changing the minimum rating to 7* for all players while increasing current star cap slightly relative to player strength. This would force teams to use more balanced lineup variations which would in my opinion benefit middle-tier players.

Free agency draft needs to be abolished as well for this season.

[Zeebu]

[QUOTE=ogron;n1360324]

your reading comprehension seems really low, considering i laid out exactly what i'm trying to say in a clear and concise manner.

i didn't bash anyone, you keep using that word to try to make me look bad. i said violence is a dork, and that i am also a dork and did the exact same thing, and the star cap system allows you to out-captain others to a much larger degree than the star slot, especially with unlimited trades because there is a cumulative effect of having multiple understarred players under the star cap. not only is he outdrafting other captains, he's then targeting weaker captains in trade after trade.

he's proving that someone dedicated and smart enough can turn TWDT, a league [COLOR=#27ae60][B]FOR PLAYERS[/B][/COLOR], into a fantasy camp league [COLOR=#e74c3c][B]FOR HIMSELF[/B][/COLOR].

this is one of the reasons i choose not to cap anymore, because it feels like it's too much about outcaptaining rather than outplaying others.

good captains have always outperformed, but as i said, the effect wasn't as pronounced in the past. i think removing the cap on 3-4 trades was a big mistake, and the star cap makes it too much about the captains rather than the players.

you again seem very confused at the suggestion of returning to star slots, when i wrote a whole post beneath my original one saying [U]in order to keep great captains like violence under that system, here are the solutions[/U]. i'm not going to repeat the entire post here.


[/QUOTE]

sorry about saying you bashed vio, that part i slightly misread. i guess i just dont see much of an issue there, you still need to field a team of players that will win a game. success in twdt always depends on finding players that play at or above their rating, nothing changes that. seems like more of an issue (and i think you agree) with the player ratings, not the dork-factor.

i dont see how making the captains pick themselves helps a lower rated captain, they still have to pick themselves. everyone would just draft normally until their last pick and then choose themselves. would somehow need to force the higher rated caps to choose themselves a round earlier than the lower rated caps, otherwise i cant see the point. if its there and obvious let me know, im just not seeing it.


i agree on toning down the trades, but that seems like a far more inconsequential piece of the puzzle.

[Turban]

You could always make captains force to pick themselves in a round based on their total rating. Captains rated between 27.5 and 30 would need to pick themselves by round 4, captains rated between 25 and 27 would need to pick themselves by round 5 and so forth.

[Mythril]

[QUOTE=Turban;n1360328]
Nevertheless my biggest issue with star cap is the fact that you can completely break the system by fielding a low-star player who is playing well above their expected level and thus it would be better for us to narrow down the player rating range by changing the minimum rating to 7* for all players while increasing current star cap slightly relative to player strength. This would force teams to use more balanced lineup variations which would in my opinion benefit middle-tier players.
[/QUOTE]

I think that's fair. My main goal with creating the star cap was my last point made about giving every cap the chance to draft a winning lineup in every league. As far as pure balancing goes, the flaws in the system were very apparent after the first season. We can't balance 6*s in the system as they're not ready for competitive play and we can't predict their output in a way that lets us balance them against higher rated players. And if we're wrong on their rating, they're magically the most overpowered player in the league. I initially had 40* for wb and jav which was a pretty big disaster. I think optimally that range is probably 42-43* so the majority of teams never have to add anything lower than 7*. I think we've seen this season that 41* still leaves a lot of room for error. 42* the season prior to this was pretty great though.

As far as base goes, I was really hesitant about implementing the star cap system there as it adds way more variables to the mix. I'm not convinced at all that it actually balances that league out. Is the 3* difference between a 7* spid and 10* spid the same as a 7* shark and 10* shark? My guess would be probably not. I think it's almost impossible to balance that out in terr and agree with Ogron that 10* terrs probably take the biggest hit in the system. I think whoever drafts the best spider lineup in DT is most likely to win the league at this point. If it's not possible to draft a 10* terr, and two 10* sharks and win the league with a band of mid-tier spids, then the system likely doesn't work. I think there's a lot of room for someone to think of something better for base.

The problem with accuracy of ratings will exist in any system where we have lineup restrictions though. We probably need to rethink that process. Maybe outline a few specific players that are a "perfect" representation of each rating and then use that as a guide to place everyone else in. But I don't think there's a way to ever get it perfect.

[Riverside]

[QUOTE=Mythril;n1360327].[I]..meaningful surrounding context...[/I]

I can't think of anything besides the star cap system that allows you to do that without doing a heavy restructuring of the draft itself.[/QUOTE]

I agree.

If/when the mmr system is voluntarily built, tested and released, itd be neat to see a bots & human insights rating balance to rate players in each league.

Until then, I agree with continuing to build on improving the accuracy of the ratings system today. I think its worked well in a lot of ways.

Improvements that can be made:[LIST][*]Adding clear & meaningful criteria for who selects the ratings in each league (including how many TWDT Ratings team members there are in each league, from each * category)[*]Adding criteria that volunteer raters utilize. The Dev Teams mmr rating system is centered around impact to winning, and using data to capture impact to winning. What are the central and supporting factors for the TWDT Ratings Team? How is each individual volunteer getting there?[*]What is the consistent protocol used when a member of the Ratings Team has never, rarely or hasn't recently seen a person play in a ship?[*]Seek what category of * has the highest impact and/or most often recurrences of reactive or proactive concerns of an unfair rating. Seek a systemic solution to that breakage, implement, review, and move on to the next.[*]In my opinion (Myths contributions to the thread prompted this thought): the impact of spiders, sharks and terriers in a basing game is different. That inequality in the fundamental value of each ship is something to consider addressing systemically, since the team Cap limit is applied to each ship equally.[/LIST]

[Turban]

[QUOTE=Mythril;n1360331]


As far as base goes, I was really hesitant about implementing the star cap system there as it adds way more variables to the mix. I'm not convinced at all that it actually balances that league out. Is the 3* difference between a 7* spid and 10* spid the same as a 7* shark and 10* shark? My guess would be probably not. I think it's almost impossible to balance that out in terr and agree with Ogron that 10* terrs probably take the biggest hit in the system. I think whoever drafts the best spider lineup in DT is most likely to win the league at this point. If it's not possible to draft a 10* terr, and two 10* sharks and win the league with a band of mid-tier spids, then the system likely doesn't work. I think there's a lot of room for someone to think of something better for base.
[/QUOTE]

There are some ideas you could do to balance it out such as having terriers cost ~80% value rounded up when added to a lineup which would be my estimate on how impactful that ship is relative to other ships. This would essentially mean following for player ratings when added as a terrier --



[TABLE="align: left, border: 0, cellpadding: 0, width: 200"]
[TR]
[TD][B]Current[/B][/TD]
[TD][B]Adjusted[/B][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]8.00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9.5[/TD]
[TD]7.50[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]7.0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8.5[/TD]
[TD]7.0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]6.5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7.5[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]5.5[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]














You could also make it so that high star terriers would cost 80% of their value while middle-tier terriers would cost 90% of their current value to make it more evenly spread in terms of adjusted ratings.

[Dreamwin]

I have absolutely no problem playing DT with old star cap system as long as there will be more teams and higher * cap. I think its the best setup for DT hands down. High star players really needed TWL because most of us miss truly competitive games. Now that it is happening, our desires are fulfilled for another year.

[ogron]

[QUOTE=Mythril;n1360331]
As far as base goes, I was really hesitant about implementing the star cap system there as it adds way more variables to the mix. I'm not convinced at all that it actually balances that league out. Is the 3* difference between a 7* spid and 10* spid the same as a 7* shark and 10* shark? My guess would be probably not. I think it's almost impossible to balance that out in terr and agree with Ogron that [B]10* terrs probably take the biggest hit in the system[/B]. I think whoever drafts the best spider lineup in DT is most likely to win the league at this point. If it's not possible to draft a 10* terr, and two 10* sharks and win the league with a band of mid-tier spids, then the system likely doesn't work.[/QUOTE]

Yes, because the value of the 3 basing ships are asymmetrical. Put plainly, a 10* terr's value is 90% in FlagRoom battles, and their team's struggle immensely to break cram, leaving you stuck in mid 60% of the game waiting for your team to break.

[COLOR=#e74c3c][SIZE=20px]The current criteria to win as a 10* terr[/SIZE][/COLOR][SIZE=20px]:[/SIZE]

1) Be the best terr in the game playing at your peak
2) Get drafted to Top 3 team
3) Your teammates all have to play amazing in the semis/finals
4) Then as terr [U]have the greatest statistical performance in the history of the playoffs across all formats [B]by double[/B][/U]

[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/ymfyKGD.png"}[/IMG2]

That was basically what I had to do last season to win, and in 2020 when I went 35-1 in the finals. So basically have a 30 KDA with the least amount of shark/spider stars... when nobody in the game's history has ever had a playoff run above 15 KDA... so just double the other all-time great terr performances.

It's an incredibly unrealistic bar. Warbird isn't far behind, either. What Racka and Vys had to do last season to reach finals as 10*s was fucking incredible. In 8 seasons only two players have won TWDT-D as a 10*.